Labour contagion fears weigh on rand

Concerns over labour unrest contagion to other sectors continued to pressure the rand on Friday afternoon.

“The labour issue is bad for productivity and this harms domestic stocks‚ which in turn affects the rand‚” said Mark Kalkwarf a senior portfolio manager at the Iquad Group.

“Concerns over contagion to other sectors feed off each other‚” he said.

At 3.33pm‚ the rand was bid at R8.8942 to the US dollar from R8.8127 at Thursday’s close. The local currency was bid at R11.8366 to the euro from its previous close of R11.7799 and at R14.1581 against sterling from R14.0782 before.

The euro was bid at $1.3319 from Thursday’s close of $1.3374. - I-Net Bridge